


A Small Trace, A Blank Slate

by blackorchids



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: College, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Getting Back Together, Healing, Healthy Relationships, Lesbian Character, Long-Distance Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Mentioned Sexual Assault, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Post-Canon, Reunions, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Team as Family, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: So Hyde comes home married and Jackie chooses herself. It's better than she thought it would be.





	1. not with a bang, but with a whimper

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, I've been working on for close to twenty hours so far, and I already have the second part finished, so expect that by the weekend!
> 
> Title from _Babylon_, by 5sos. Chapter titles from the poem _The Hollow Men_ by T.S. Eliot. Also, for anyone who's concerned by all my tagged pairings, anything with the & is strictly friendship. This is a zenmasters-endgame fic, dw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILER-Y TRIGGER WARNING AT THE END NOTES**  
regarding a brief, non-graphic sexual assault in the workplace. please see the end notes for more information if that is potentially triggering, but know that it will be a spoiler.

So Hyde comes home married and Jackie chooses herself.

She cries for an entire weekend, packs half-heartedly between obnoxiously blowing her nose and boxing up momentos from her failed relationship.

Taking posters down from the walls and emptying her dresser and closet takes so much out of her, energy that she doesn’t have, but every time she sits and closes her eyes for half a second, she pictures Steven pulling his new bride through the Forman’s front door.

Kelso and Donna help her drag endless boxes of belongings to battered womens’ shelters around the county, help her sort through the contents of the house, stripping it down until it’s basically bare, holding a huge garage sale for the furniture and definitely _not_ breaking even, finally storing a box of photographs and a few precious trinkets in the Forman’s basement amongst their Christmas decorations and Eric’s baby clothes.

Jackie puts the house up for sale when it’s finally empty, armed with her mother’s signature on a stack of papers giving her power of attorney. She met someone in Mexico and is uninterested in coming home, and her father still has nearly ten years of his sentence to carry out.

It doesn’t make any sense to hang onto it when Jackie doesn’t want to stay in town, so she holds half a dozen open houses, dusting the eaves and waxing the floors between each one just like Martina had taught her, on her last day of employment. 

The night before closing, Kelso streaks through it one last time, and Donna brings over blankets and sleeping bags so the three of them can spend the night on the floor of her empty parlor room. She tears up several times, and neither of them mention it.

The next morning, they drive her to the attorney’s office so she can sign over her childhood home to a newly wed couple. The money left from the sale is minimal after putting most of it towards paying the city back and her father’s Lincoln is stuffed with all of the things Jackie is taking with her to Chicago.

She has just enough to get herself a cute apartment in a safe neighborhood, and to furnish it, and, after three whirlwind weeks that she can barely remember, Kelso and Donna leave her in this new, huge, scary city, and go home without her.

The next Monday, she starts her new job, a paid internship at WGN, that she’d fought tooth and nail to win out over a handful of college-educated men in their late twenties.

The job is a gazillion times harder than her cheese maiden job and her brief stint as a newshost, is made up of long hours on her high-heeled feet and men shouting at her and leering at her in equal measure. She’s belittled more often than she’s praised, and she finds herself constantly biting her tongue to avoid defending herself or snapping back when someone is being unfair.

But she’s learning every single day, comes home to her slowly-furnished apartment with her head spinning full of information, statistics, and half-baked news stories.

Her apartment doesn’t have a tub, so, at night, she soaks her blistered feet in a pot of hot water while she goes over articles and fact-checks stories, switching words around and rephrasing entire paragraphs until her bosses start noticing how much better Mark and Bradley sound on-air.

Jackie soaks up the praise, feels her adrenaline start rushing when she gets offered a temporary summer position where she’s allowed to shadow the writers, and, suddenly, it’s been more than a year since she’s been back to Point Place.

Donna comes to visit that summer, and they share a bed for a week, squeezing in exploring the city between Jackie’s job, going out at night far too late so that Jackie’s coming to work wearing sunglasses and day-old curls in her hair.

“I think I want to go to college,” Jackie tells her, on the fourth night. Donna looks impressed but unsurprised, and Jackie thinks about how many times Donna had tried to get her to focus on something other than beauty products and boys.

Donna leaves with a promise that Jackie will come to the Formans’ Thanksgiving Party that autumn, and Jackie applies to DePaul.

College and work balance is hard, but Jackie’s summer writing job has ended, which means she’s free to become Walter Collins’ personal assistant. Jackie’s used to hardwork now, knows how to manage her time and prioritise, and she loves school in a way she doesn’t remember ever experiencing before.

October is the worst month in recent memory, a double whammy of starting and ending a relationship with a boy in her writing class and Walter grabbing her ass on set.

She’s not quiet about it, makes a huge fuss when it happens and argues and fights and complains to her boss, before taking the case to the producers. It’s the eighties, she thinks, this kind of shit should be handled better, but Collins doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist. The memory of his smug expression in the meeting when the company’s lawyers talk about how Jackie dresses makes her vomit in the restroom, but she’s clean and composed when she quits.

College expenses for that semester have already been paid for and Jackie had been saving a lot of money since she had no one to buy gifts for, which means the only real effect of her quitting is that she can go back home for a week instead of just three days.

Going to class and doing homework is easy when it’s the only thing she has to focus on, and she makes sure to have several interviews lined up for when she comes back from Wisconsin, and, suddenly, it’s time to drive up.

Point Place at the end of November is a thousand times colder than Chicago, and Jackie’s only been gone eighteen months but it’s like she’d forgotten everything she ever knew about winter. Donna, in just jeans and a jacket and a flannel, makes fun of her when she shows up Monday afternoon with full winter gear, hat, scarf, gloves, coat and all.

“City girl doesn’t know winter anymore,” she teases, but she hugs Jackie back when Jackie throws her arms around her, and she doesn’t even complain when Jackie makes noises about Donna being the one to carry the suitcase to her room.

Kelso and Fez are hanging around the driveway playing basketball, and she hugs both of them too, has missed her circle while she was away. Mrs. Forman kisses the top of her head and Mr. Forman pats her back, and it’s more affection than she can remember ever getting from her own parents, and it’s so nice to be home.

The four of them hang out in the basement, watching tv and catching up and smoking some stale weed Jackie had found in Hyde’s old bedroom that barely gives them a buzz.

The days start to pass too quickly, Jackie and Donna bickering like they always had and Michael somehow not hitting on her and instead being a really good friend, and Jackie feels so full and warm being back with her friends that she almost thinks about moving home.

She follows Mrs. Forman around the kitchen when Donna’s at work, listening to her tips for cooking with much more appreciation than she’d had when she was sixteen, and when Mr. Forman slyly mentions a strange clicking noise he’d heard the last few times he’d driven the Cruiser, she follows him out to the garage to wiggle under the car and take a look.

It’s there, under the car, that she hears Mrs. Forman rush out of the house to greet Forman, who must’ve finally come home, and when she turns her head so her cheek rests against the cold concrete, she can see a very familiar pair of boots standing next to the still-hugging mother and son.

Jackie takes her time, finds and replaces two rusted-through pistons easily, and then spends another forty minutes tinkering with parts and needlessly tightening every bolt and screw.

She thinks she’s careful to not touch her face, but when she finally slides out from under the car to go inside and tell Mr. Forman that she’d fixed it, Forman makes a tasteless joke about Jackie not doing well since her dad got arrested.

Mrs. Forman scolds him, but it’s Hyde hitting him that Jackie zeros in on, as helpless to notice as she had been as a teenager.

“Steven,” she says, biting her lip and hesitating. He opens his arms, though, and she darts towards him, hugging him tight enough that he exhales harshly, his hands settling on the small of her back and between her shoulder blades as easily as ever.

“Finally decided to visit us, huh?” He asks, still holding her. “Bigshot Burkhart not too busy this holiday?”

He doesn’t sound malicious, though, and Jackie’s gotten better about tempering her immediate defensive attitude. Better enough that she can laugh as she finally releases him, scooting back barely a few inches and feeling a juvenile sense of relief that he doesn’t let his hands drop from her.

Mrs. Forman asks about Sam, then, and Hyde backs away from her, looking apologetic as Mr. Forman scolds her with an exasperated, “_Kitty_!”

“She stayed home with Deb,” Hyde tells her, gently brushing past Jackie to sit at the table. Jackie absently participates in the conversation about nothing, bites back at Forman without even thinking almost every time he talks. She wants to know who Deb is, but like hell she’s going to ask. “They’ll come for the big dinner though, don’t worry, Mrs. F.”

It’s much later that they all gather in the basement, seating harder to find now that none of them are dating, a few extra folding chairs being pulled out from who knows where. Steven says he’s got some stash saved and once he goes into his old room to look for it, Kelso and Fez start giggling.

Jackie crosses her legs, tries to look innocent, and, when he comes back out empty-handed, she can tell she’s failed, because he shoots a narrow-eyed look of suspicion at her. Luckily, Kelso had planned ahead and picked up some new stuff, and they make quick work of it, separating and rolling until they have a little pile of spliffs sitting on the table amongst old magazines and a handful of mismatched game pieces.

Forman lights up the first one and takes a long drag, erupting into coughs and passing it to Fez.

They pass it around quietly until everyone has had a few hits, and Eric is not the only one to cough inexpertly anymore. It’s not long until Fez starts rambling about his students, bitching about _whiny little six-year-olds_, like it’s not immediately obvious he adores them all. Kelso complains about the newest rookie, admits that it’s great not being the newest member on the force anymore but laments how annoying it is to teach a new guy the ropes.

When Donna starts talking about her classes at Marquette, it draws Jackie into a discussion about professors and teaching styles, and then the ice is officially, completely broken, and they’re all unapologetically talking over each other like they used to.

At one point, Jackie admits that she’d quit her job, and four pairs eyes turn to her, surprised, and Donna sighs, reaching over Kelso to give Jackie the roach instead. She’d already heard the story, watches uncomfortably when Jackie downplays it into _a disagreement_ and Forman starts teasing her about being unable to compromise.

Jackie punches him herself, Donna loudly telling him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and, from across the circle, Steven, eyes bluer against his bloodshot whites, is staring at her thoughtfully. Finally, Jackie tells them the truth.

It makes Fez and Kelso shift in discomfort, awkwardness spilling out as they all remember how they’d acted when they were in high school, but Jackie talks frankly while staring at a black chess rook and two little red Monopoly hotels. It’s easy to explain, she’s past feeling embarrassment or fear or shame, and when Kelso hesitantly lifts his arm to offer her a side-hug in comfort, she takes it without pause.

“Anyway,” Jackie says, shaking her hair out and finally passing the roach, burned down to nearly her fingertips, to Forman, who reaches out and nudges her shin with his shoe in silent apology. “It’s good timing, because next semester one of my classes is a more time-consuming tutorial, so I’ll have to find a job that can be more flexible with that.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Steven says loudly when it looks like no one else is going to say anything. “It was weird knowing you were working for such a huge corporation, helping those goons spread the government’s ploys.” He tosses her two oreos and gives her one of his zen-master nods, and Jackie grins at him, thankful.

“I am still impressed that Kelso and Jackie are in college when Forman isn’t.” Fez says cheerfully. “Who expected Eric to be the failure of the group?”

It’s clearly hypothetical, but five hands go up and Forman scoffs, offense showy and loud.

Thanksgiving creeps up on them and Jackie and Donna wake up early to head across the driveway to help Mrs. Forman with the sides while she takes care of the turkey.

“That thing is bigger than Eric,” Jackie comments, watching her struggle with it. She giggles a little before half-heartedly defending her baby boy. Donna nudges Jackie, lips twitching, and Jackie turns back to her job of peeling potatoes, whistling innocently.

Slowly, the boys start waking up and coming down, trying to steal snacks to nibble on like they don’t know the Thanksgiving rule is to starve until dinner. The steam brings out Jackie’s natural curls, and she pulls her hair back into a tight knot in between smacking Kelso’s prying hands with her rubber spatula.

Fez starts crooning and leering and then Mrs. Forman starts shooing all of the men except Hyde out of the kitchen.

“Steven is in charge of desserts,” says Eric’s mom, and Jackie squints at him a little. She knows he’s so good around the house because he had a rough childhood, but it had been one of the first things about him that she liked. She sticks to her side of the kitchen, though, talks with him the same friendly way she talks to Mrs. Forman and Donna but doesn’t move any closer to him.

Finally, finally, all of the sides are done and are staying warm atop the oven, and the bird only has an hour or so left to cook, so Mrs. Forman banishes them all from a mostly-clean kitchen to change into their Sunday best for dinner.

Donna convinces Jackie to leave her hair curly, tells her to just make the bun a little neater, and Jackie convinces Donna to wear a skirt, tight but long. Donna pairs it with a nice enough blouse, but flat-out refuses to wear heels, even though Jackie is.

“You _always_ wear heels!” Donna protests, watching Jackie clomp around in them, just wearing her black nylons and silk shift. Donna swears the hot-shower-steam trick will take the horrifying crease out of the center of Jackie’s dress, but Jackie’s busy trying to come up with a back-up outfit, panicky and annoyed because she’d had her heart set on the beautiful, grey dress with the white lacy Peter Pan collar.

“The dress is going to be _fine_,” Donna says, taking a pair of striped high-waisted pants and a teal blouse out of her hands. “Why don’t you calm down and do my eye make-up?”

That works. Donna’s a good friend. The shower thing works too, mostly, so, after Jackie does Donna’s makeup and puts a little silvery eye-shadow and red lipstick on her own face, they collect Bob and head back over to the Forman house, which has since filled up with more guests that Jackie vaguely remembers.

She hovers by Donna, though, and pretends she can’t tell that Forman is annoyed with her because of it, but it’s not like Forman doesn’t have plenty of opportunities every day to try and get back together again with her, so Jackie doesn’t even feel bad about it.

Jackie is not avoiding Steven and Sam, which is why she’s forced to be introduced to them when they arrive and immediately spot her and Donna playing in the front room with Betsy, who’s an adorable four year old with a big attitude.

“Sam, this is Jackie and Donna and little Betsy Kelso,” Steven says when Jackie’s stood up to greet them like an adult. “Guys, this is Sam.”

Sam smiles at them, a little shy and way prettier now that she’s dressed like a normal adult and not the stripper Steven married to avoid marrying Jackie. Betsy hides behind Jackie’s legs, though, which is a little gratifying.

“Where’s Deb?” Donna asks, not glancing at Jackie because she’s a way better liar than any of the boys are. If the answer to this question answers all of Jackie’s, Jackie will kiss her.

“Oh, she got caught up with Mrs. Forman’s father,” Sam says in a clear, Donna-esque voice. “He saw us holding hands and,” here, she starts to finger-quote, “_had some questions about the homosexuals_.”

Jackie laughs with the rest of them, totally natural, and it’s her that asks, “Oh, you didn’t want to rescue her?”

Sam grins a little, mischievous, and says something about payback, but Jackie is preoccupied with trying to find the right balance between blatantly staring at Steven and avoiding looking at him at all. She should’ve come home more often, she thinks, just so she’d be used to this situation by now.

“Hyde!” comes Forman’s voice from further into the house, which solves that problem. Maybe Jackie _will_ let him get a moment alone with Donna.

“Go,” says Sam, smiling at him. “I’ll be good here.”

He squeezes her shoulders and nods at Donna and Jackie, letting Betsy give him a low-five before he darts up the three steps and through the living room, leaving Jackie and Donna and Sam to their own devices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Extended Trigger Warning**  
There is a scene in the first chapter where Jackie is sexually assaulted in her workplace by someone who is her superior. It is brief and not graphic (her ass gets grabbed), but, true to the time period, when she reports it to her boss, nothing happens and some talk of blaming her clothing occurs, it's a little bit gaslight-y. Because of this, Jackie quits her job. Later, she tells her friends what led to her quitting and they are all supportive, but if any of that's triggering to you, please proceed with caution.


	2. our lost kingdoms (in this last of meeting places)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **trigger warning:** brief mention of the sexual assault that happened in the previous chapter (hyde is angry about it)

Hyde hears his name and vows to get Donna and Forman back together for Forman’s Christmas gift that year. It feels like a horrible rash is erupting all up his back as he steps away from the group, leaving Sam with his ex-girlfriend and Donna, but he’s also so relieved his knees feel like jelly, so he’s extra smooth with Mrs. Forman when she asks him to take the turkey out of the oven because Eric couldn’t manage it.

Red doesn’t even pretend he’s going to let Forman carve the bird, just stands up and gets to work with a knife that’s probably giving his son some new nightmare material. Three uneven tables are butted against one another, elbows bumping and knees pushing, but Mrs. Forman had convinced Red they didn’t need a kiddie table this year, since Betsy had better table manners than half the boys.

Conversation is jumbled, people talking to their table neighbors until they hear a piece of someone else’s conversation and jump in, shouting across plates and faces. Deb and Sam are sitting next to him, but Donna and Jackie are across from them, which means it’s not hard to stare at Jackie for most of the meal, taking in her sweet grey dress and the texture of her hair that reminds him, uncomfortably, of when they’d spend so long in bed together that all her primping and setting would vanish.

He’d been furious on her behalf the other night, when he’d listened to her describe why she’d had to quit the job she had loved so much, but Jackie doesn’t seem to have any lingering trauma from the events, is as comfortable as she always has been with every member of their group, even if she seems a lot closer with Donna now.

Hyde knows she and Donna had kept in touch, calling one another at least once a week to talk for hours. He’s glad for the both of them: Donna had sometimes struggled, having only guys for friends, and Jackie definitely needed a better friend than the girls she used to hang out with from the cheer team.

Listening to her talk now is at once familiar and surreal: her voice is as shrill as always, and he’d known she had the brains hidden inside her overly-hair-sprayed head, but being on her own, away from their group, had seemed to help wash away the rest of her vapid cheerleader persona to make room for the real Jackie Burkhart to develop: quick-witted, a little vain, whole-heartedness for miles.

Sam nudges him when she notices he’s been staring for too long, which is good, because if she hadn’t, Kelso might’ve noticed and loudly, tactlessly asked about it, which definitely would be enough to halt all other conversations.

The group eats until they’re visibly stuffed, and then Forman, Fez, and Kelso are tasked with clearing the tables so that the two pies Hyde baked and the cake Mrs. Pinciotti had bought from Piggly Wiggly can be served, along with coffee.

The whole dinner had been going very well until Eric tried to confess his feelings for Donna and she rejected him and kissed Fez for emphasis, but, on a scale of Forman Thanksgiving Disasters, it hardly even makes the cut for a rating.

Deb and Jackie are getting along great, which he should’ve guessed, since Deb has always wanted to be a writer, and that’s sort of what Jackie’s going to school for now, so when the group starts to disperse into little, more private clusters, Deb follows Jackie, Donna, and Kelso to the porch.

Hyde makes himself stay behind, talks at length with Mrs. Forman’s father about _Grooves_ and is impressed to learn that the man had been a musician back in the day. Guests that aren’t family slowly start to leave, Bob falls asleep in Red’s chair and Red only makes one joke about getting a gun, and Mrs. Forman’s mother gets into an argument with Brooke about Betsy.

Forman is sulking in the corner by the stairs, getting drunker and drunker, and when he finally gets up, mumbling about Donna, Fez’s _aiiii_ is easy to pick out over the quietened chatter. Hyde notices that Mrs. Forman’s dad is about to knock out, so he follows Fez to the basement where Forman has already lit up and is dramatically sucking the smoke down, coughing after each hit until his eyes are streaming with tears.

“It’s puff-puff-_pass_, you sonuvabitch,” Fez says, throwing himself onto the couch next to Forman and taking the spliff from his loose grip.

“You sure you want to get cross-faded?” Hyde asks him mildly, snatching up his glasses from the abandoned Candy Land game on the spool table and putting them on.

“You’re not the only one with a star-crossed lover here,” Forman snaps and Hyde raises his eyebrows high enough the dumbass can see them.

Fez passes to Hyde and smacks at Forman. “Hyde is handling Jackie like a man, not like a whiny baby!”

“Hyde is not handling anyone,” Hyde says, reluctantly passing back to Forman even though the guy’s eyes are already bloodshot and dilated. “It’s all in the past, man.”

Fez mumbles a pointed _see?_ to Eric, but when Forman doesn’t argue any more, he kindly changes the conversation to how hot Bob’s newest girlfriend is. They’re pretty high when the basement door bursts open and the rest of their group and Sam and Deb and Brooke show up, which hopefully explains why Hyde tries to make room on his chair for Jackie.

She laughs at him, but sits on a chair next to him instead of further away, and when Donna burns Forman three times in a row, it’s Hyde that she turns to for a celebratory high-five, not anyone else.

When they’re all blazed, they make the group decision to send Fez up to try and scour up some leftovers for them all to snack on after discovering there are only two popsicles in the Forman freezer. Forman wants one but they give it to Kelso because everyone’s still sore with him for embarrassing Donna _again_, and Jackie claims the other one and lavs at it with her tongue, apparently oblivious to Hyde _and Deb and Sam_ watching her mouth.__

_ _The night continues with Jackie inviting Sam and Deb to visit her in the city so that Deb can visit the Tribune building, and it ends when Kelso accidentally blurts out that he was going to ask Brooke to marry him soon._ _

_ _She says yes, though, which is good for him, and Jackie is completely genuine when she hugs him and tells him she’s happy for him, which is good for, uh, her._ _

_ _Her, and no one else._ _

_ _In the morning, Hyde wakes up still a little high and doesn’t feel bad _at all_ when Red dumps a bucket full of cold water on Eric, who slept curled up on the shitty little couch._ _

_ _“Tell me why your foreign friend spent the night in my closet?” Red rages, and, even depressed and hung over, Eric can’t manage to smother a laugh, which means Red throws the bucket at him in disgust, storming back up the stairs with a demand for the gutters to be cleaned._ _

_ _In the kitchen, Mrs. Forman is making a dozen turkey omelettes, shrilly yelling at Red for being _rude to guests_ the day after Thanksgiving. Hyde brings up two crates of Christmas decorations before he sits down to eat, because he knows she’ll want to go through them later in the day before sending the boys out hunting for a tree._ _

_ _Strict instructions to only procure the tree from a tree farm, because some follies don’t get dropped too easily, unfortunately._ _

_ _At noon, Hyde pulls on his boots and jacket and makes his way into town so he can let his shop assistant go home for the day. He’s real grateful to have her this year, because he’d been opening up early for Black Friday the past two years and it had sucked, like, majorly._ _

_ _The store is pretty busy, and he has Leo running the register so Hyde can be the one in charge of answering questions and fetching stock from the back, because he knows Leo’s strengths, and when he finally closes in early evening, he can already tell that W.B. is going to be proud of his numbers this month._ _

_ _After he sweeps and locks up, he totals out his register and locks the money in the safe in the office space, and then he goes about looking for a few records to bring back. He finds a good Sinatra Christmas album he wants to give to Mrs. Forman, already regrets it even as he pulls it out, and he pulls out an Iron Maiden album and the new Prince album for good measure. He makes sure Leo leaves for the night and turns out the lights, and feels the same, familiar little warmth of satisfaction curling low in his spine._ _

_ _Being a successful, functional adult never gets old, even if it sometimes gets boring._ _

_ _

_ _Mrs. Forman tears up in gratitude when he gives her the album, which makes him feel kind of guilty that he doesn’t do more for her. Forman breaks a glass during dinner, though, which helps alleviate that feeling._ _

_ _Kelso and Fez managed to bring back a perfectly ordinary tree and no one says it, but they’re all definitely thinking that the tree they stole from the preserve was _way_ better. That night, Mrs. Forman says a lot of sappy things about decorating the tree with her three favorite boys, which means that Red and Hyde and Forman all have to hang out with her, listening to Frank Sinatra and drinking sherry and detangling lights._ _

_ _Forman and his father complain the whole time, but Hyde’s starting to appreciate how hard the Formans work to make him feel like a part of the family, so he’s the one who hangs the little horses and drums and Santas in the higher part of the tree. Red’s still the one to put the angel on, though._ _

_ _It’s late when he goes to collect Sam and Deb from Donna’s house so the three of them can head back to their apartment. In the car, they spend the whole trip yammering about college and Donna and Jackie and what Donna and Jackie had _told them_ about college. The three of them watch t.v. for a while when they get home, Deb and Sam cuddling together on the couch and Hyde lounging in his thrifted recliner._ _

_ _In the morning, he heads to the library to find out when the next freshman orientation at WU is, and the wizened old lady helpfully gives him a flier she’d gotten in a fax, and explains to him about majors and dorms in a way he hadn’t really absorbed when he and the boys went down in high school._ _

_ _He heads home and leaves the information on the table for them to find under the keys to the Camino, knows they’ll see the gesture for what it is._ _

_ _At the store, Jackie is lounging casually in one of his spin-y chairs, headphones on and expression daring him to accuse her of being there for him. He doesn’t, instead helps his customers and sells records and runs the register when Leo doesn’t come back after his lunch break, and pretends he doesn’t notice Jackie showing people how to find records and talking about new stock like she’d never left Point Place._ _

_ _When she doesn’t know an answer, she brings the customer to him, lets him show them around and takes over the register like an old pro, smiling and flirting and tricking people into buying new headphones and single packets of popcorn._ _

_ _She keeps playing ABBA over the loudspeakers, though, and she must have brought the record with her, because Hyde specifically doesn’t stock them._ _

_ _“Turn it off!” He growls every time Dancing Queen starts blasting, and she taps at her ear and makes an expression like she can’t hear him._ _

_ _During a lull, he goes behind the counter to sit on the stool next to hers, and she leans over and says, plainly, “Sam told me you married her because she and Deb were trying to leave a bad situation.”_ _

_ _Hyde chokes on nothing, like he wasn’t the one to teach her how to be so zen, and she grins at him. He knows that the news doesn’t erase the hurt, but Jackie’s heart has always been too big, and he’d be willing to bet that she’d tried to forgive him even before this came up._ _

_ _“They’re lesbians,” he tells her and she rolls her eyes._ _

_ _“_Obviously_, Steven,” she says shrilly, and he feels a rush of fondness for her._ _

_ _“Tell the truth,” he says abruptly, and she blinks over at him, clicking a pen obnoxiously. “How is Chicago?”_ _

_ _She tilts her head and gnaws on the inside of her cheek, a habit she’d intentionally picked up to avoid messing up her lipstick. “It’s hard,” she says slowly, thinking it out. “My landlord doesn’t always want to fix things for me, so I’ve been learning how to do it on my own. Even before the Collins’ thing, my job felt like twelve-hours-a-day of fools’ errands. Sometimes my professors are condescending because I’m a girl.”_ _

_ _Steven stares at her, brows raised, and she notices, lips twitching up at the corners._ _

_ _“But it’s good,” she continues, scratching absently at one arm. “I feel so strong and smart and, like I’m on a really good coaster.”_ _

_ _He nudges her with his elbow and she nudges back, and he thinks he’ll never love another woman the way he loves Jackie Burkhart._ _

_ _It takes a couple tries to clear his throat. “I’m proud, young grasshopper,” he finally says, and her face splits into something a little more pained, even though her smile is definitely still real._ _

_ _“I miss you every day,” she tells him, honest but also in revenge. She’s definitely not expecting him to respond in any meaningful way, and he wants to prove her wrong, wants to show her that he’s grown in that way too, but he knows if he tries to say _I miss you_, he might accidentally say _I love you_ instead. _ _

_ _So he gets off the stool and heads into the back and flips over the record, restarting ABBA’s terrible music again._ _

_ _She’s looking at him from the register, eyes wide and mouth a little open, and he knows she got it._ _

_ _Hyde doesn’t see Jackie again before she leaves to go back to Chicago. Monday morning, she makes the drive on her own this time, and Forman had half-heartedly made fun of her for getting emotional as she was saying goodbye to anyone who was hanging around the Forman house when she’d packed up._ _

_ _Donna goes to frog him, but Kelso beats her to it, but they all know he’s just doing running his mouth for show. Donna had told them all that he’d hugged Jackie back almost as hard as Jackie had hugged him._ _

_ _He goes back to his regular routine for a couple of weeks; runs his store like a well-oiled machine, goes to dinner at the Formans’ on Wednesdays and Sundays, goes bowling with Donna and plays basketball with Kelso and watches E.T. with Forman, spends time with his wife and her girlfriend and helps them try and figure out what kind of budget they might be able to manage to afford Deb going to college._ _

_ _On Christmas Eve, she calls him at the store, somehow knowing he’s there late, and they talk through midnight and well into the next morning. Forman Christmas breakfast is torture and his eyes burn from only sleeping for an hour and a half, but it’s worth it, because it feels like the last part of him has finally settled._ _


	3. between the emotion and the response

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry the title is kinda lame tbh but if i used that poem for two of three chapters only that'd be weird imo

After the holidays, Jackie strong-arms her way into a researcher position at a small newspaper in the city, has three interviews for the spot and can tell the elderly man in charge, the one with several thick golden rings on sausage-like fingers who smokes a stogie during each of their meetings but doesn’t give her chest or her legs so much a passing glance,is not too sure about hiring her, so she argues for it, is frank and honest in a way that she finds harder to do with people she knows than ones who are strangers.

The only other researcher is a drably dressed middle-aged women with flaky lipstick and teeth stained from too much coffee and wine, but she’s easily the smartest person Jackie has ever met and, once Jackie impresses her with her own quick-to-learn abilities, the woman is easy to work with and willing to help where Jackie might need it.

She urges Jackie’s training along by turning it into a competition, for months gives Jackie copies of each article she’s meant to be fact-checking and tells her to find the evidence faster, and, finally, one day, Jackie does, sliding a manila folder full of photo-copied book pages and other articles onto Rose’s desk, unable and unwilling to even try to hide her grin.

Rose looks up at her through cat-eye glasses hanging on the edge of her nose, cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, and Jackie taps the folder for emphasis.

“You know,” Jackie says to her, flush with victory. “I have a lipstick that will turn you into a _goddess_.”

Rose scoffs, flipping through the folder absently, but she clearly trusts Jackie’s information by now, because she closes it without too much inspection and leans back in her squeaking swivel chair. “You can take that stack on my inbox, then,” she tells Jackie without acknowledging the lipstick comment or commenting on any of Jackie’s research. “We’ll be sharing the caseload now, Burkhart, and I expect you to pull your own weight.”

Jackie still gives her a tube of pink-red lipstick to replace her ruddy brown one, and it’s only a couple more days before she starts to use it.

In March, Deb and Donna come to visit, the latter looking around Jackie’s book-strewn apartment with interest. “I always knew you were a dweeb,” Donna starts, laughing, and Jackie sneers at her playfully even as she carefully does Deb’s eye make-up, using blues and greens and violets to make a sort of oil-spill look that pops on her darker skin.

Donna lets Jackie paint her nails too, with minimal complaining, and then they go hit a few clubs that Jackie’s heard the girls in her psychology class talk about. The music is loud and catchy and nothing like what Donna would play on her radio station, and they get sweaty and pink from too much dancing and brightly colored mixed drinks with little paper umbrellas.

When they get back, Donna’s the first one asleep, always lethargic after too many drinks, so Jackie makes her take her makeup off and helps her with her strappy shoes before she slumps onto Jackie’s bed, laying atop the duvet in a way that’s going to make Jackie going to bed later very annoying.

She goes back out into the kitchen where Deb is shoeless and cooking pasta for them to eat, throwing in all the cheese from Jackie’s fridge and too many seasonings to count until she’s created a steaming pot of macaroni and cheese that is so delicious it should be illegal. As she eats her second bowl, Jackie has a startlingly vivid mental image of all of her favorite pants’ buttons popping so aggressively that the windows are shattered.

“Thanks for letting me come along,” Deb tells her, when the initial inhalation of the food has slowed, the pair of them sitting across from each other on the floor in front of the stove, half out of their party outfits. “I figured it’d be weird, but you’re way nicer than Eric says.”

Jackie laughs, startled. “Eric and I are reluctant friends,” she says, stirring around some of her pasta that she’s officially too-full to eat. “We’ve known each other basically our whole lives, ever since I started dating—”

Here, Deb interrupts, guessing, “—Steven?” with a knowing look.

Jackie blinks, straightening a little, and smiling ruefully. “No, actually,” she says, shaking her head when Deb’s mouth falls open in surprise and she makes to apologize. “I dated Michael—Kelso?—for nearly seven years.”

“Holy—” Deb says, apparently totally blown away. Jackie laughs some more, her head swimming far less now that she’s got a full belly of pasta and the lights aren’t blinking and strobing in all sorts of colors.

“And then, at my urging, Michael proposed to me and, after I said yes, he ran away to California for the summer.”

Recollection clears Deb’s stunned expression, and Jackie guesses she may have heard about _that summer_. She’s not so drunk that she wants to continue this line of conversation, though, has been away from both of those boys for long enough and has grown up enough that she can see her own part in each relationship’s failure as clearly as theirs.

Deb lets her change the subject to work, is clearly excited about following Jackie to the office the following day, and talks about all of the stuff she and Donna will do while Jackie’s at work for the rest of the week. Jackie’s glad she’s got Donna here to show Deb around, would feel bad if Deb had to be left to her own devices the way Donna was the first time _she_ came to visit, but she kind of hopes that Deb following her to class on Thursday will convince her to come out this way and take classes in the windy city.

Only a little, though. Jackie’s starting to think it won’t be the worst thing if she goes back home after she graduates.

The week passes too fast, though, and though Jackie is exhausted from going out most nights after work and classes, and she’s a little behind on her homework schedule despite working overtime the few days leading up to them coming to visit, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t cling to Donna and her atrocious flannel the day before it’s time to watch them pack into the ancient Vista Cruiser and drive away.

Donna lets her, too, because they’re way nicer to each other now than they were when they were children. Jackie is sorry to see Deb go too, has enjoyed having her along nearly as much as she’s enjoyed seeing Donna, and definitely appreciates her for diffusing the few times that her and Donna’s bickering had gotten a little too heated.

The morning they’re due to leave, Donna goes to shower, her suitcase all packed and her travel outfit laid out on Jackie’s floral bedspread, and Deb corners Jackie in the kitchen.

“Steven married Sam because she was pregnant,” Deb says evenly, expression open and honest. “I woulda done it myself, but—”

Jackie gets it, doesn’t make Deb elaborate, can only imagine how much it must grate at someone to know they can’t marry the person they’re meant to be with because of _the law_.

She can see it happening, too, had always appreciated how easy it was for Steven Hyde to go all in on helping someone out. The news settles something inside of her, a question that went too-long unanswered, one that she’d since accepted would never be answered, but she doesn’t feel any terrific urge to go to him that very second.

She’s learned a lot about herself by now. Knows how to wait.

“Thank you for telling me,” Jackie finally says back, just as even, and Deb raises her eyebrows, impressed and pleased.

She hugs Deb almost as tight as she hugs Donna, and, even though she thinks a movie about her life would want inclement weather for the car to fade away into, she’s glad for the clear sunny day that will make the drive home as safe as possible.

Maybe that’s growth too.

She unplugs her landline and spends the day cleaning the apartment from top to bottom and then, when she’s showered and changed into her coziest flannel pajamas, the whole place smelling fragrant and having that coolness that comes with a well-scrubbed home, she curls up on her couch to write her sociology essay.

At work, Rose continues to verbally scoff at any helpful fashion advice that Jackie sends her way, but if Jackie provides her with a hair clip or a new tube of lipstick, she will use it and say nothing.

Mr. Jameson keeps smoking his stogies and keeps treating Jackie like a person, the same way he treats Rose and all of the men who write the articles and print the papers, and one day, after they throw the goodbye party and Richard leaves, headed to New York for bigger and better things, Rose is the one to suggest to Mr. Jameson that Jackie might be able to pick up the slack on the entertainment column.

Jackie stares at her, mouth agape, but Mr. Jameson is already nodding and agreeing, seemingly oblivious to Jack and Nathan’s identical looks of consternation that _they_ wouldn’t be getting Richard’s column space and would continue to be stuck with announcements.

“Richard left us with a few articles to tide us over, Burkhart,” Mr. Jameson tells her, deep voice mild as ever. He takes another drag from his cigar and Jackie vows to find a way to get him a whole crate of Cubans, laws be damned. “That should give you enough time to review what he’s written recently and start shaping your own.”

Jackie follows Rose back to their cramped corner of the warehouse office space in a daze, and Rose snorts when she finally notices how much Jackie is decidedly _not_ listening.

“I turned you into an excellent researching partner,” Rose says finally, adjusting her twisted hair and her pink-lipsticked-lips curling into a smile. She looks like she might say something really sappy that will make Jackie tear up, but then she clearly thinks better of it. “Maybe that’ll save me some work and I won’t have much to fact-check for your articles.”

Jackie throws her arms around the woman, hugging her tight and thinking with some amount of awe that the scent of coffee and cigarettes has become so familiar to her that it’s almost comforting.

“Thank you,” she tells Rose sincerely when she finally pulls away, instead of rising to the bait. Rose looks discomfited by the genuine display of gratitude, but, finally, she smiles a little more fully. Jackie decides to give her a break. “And, don’t worry,” she says cheerfully. “We can still do our weekly manicure-bitch sessions.”

True to form, Rose scoffs at the reappearance of _Fashionista Jackie_, but she pats Jackie kindly on the shoulder before resettling at her desk and pulling the next article from the stack, red pen and encyclopedias at the ready.

Jackie spends the afternoon going through Richard’s articles for the past six months, makes notes about places he’s already talked about and starts a small list about places he hadn’t mentioned yet or hadn’t mentioned in a long while. She gets a feel for his tone, thinks she can manage a healthy balance of keeping the section true to what he’d created, slowly turning it into her own style over time, so as to not jar the readers.

She gets home later than usual, a long list of places she’s going to have to visit and things she’s going to have to do, and she’s so excited that she almost forgets she lives alone and there’s no one to ramble at while she gets ready for bed.

After she’s in her pajamas, though, she turns off the radio that she leaves on for background noise, and curls up in the corner of her couch, pulling her phone from the receiver and dialing a long-familiar number.

Somehow, Steven is still at the shop, and he answers warily, because he probably still hasn’t gotten Caller ID installed there, and it’s late at night.

“I got promoted!” is what she says, instead of a greeting of any kind, and, after that, it’s easy. He’s honest and no-nonsense about being just as stoked for her as she is, asks good questions and lets her talk and talk and talk, describing each person at her office before she can start telling the story.

She talks to him for too long, until her eyelids are too heavy to stay open, and she starts to drift when he finally deigns to talk a little, sharing a funny story about Leo and talking absently about the new batch of records he’d gotten delivered that day, and, when he finally cottons on to the fact that she’s dozing, she gets to hear him tell her _good night, doll_, very quietly in her ear, just like old times.

Jackie spends the night on the couch, hugging the phone and waking up with a stiff neck, but this phone call has changed something in the way that her two holiday calls had not. She’s not the only one to call him anymore, either, a fact that warms her down to her toes, and she doesn’t only talk to him when he’s staying late at work, gets his home phone number and puts up with Sam and Deb teasing whenever they’re lucky enough to get to the phone before Steven can.

She reads him every article she writes, shares every critique letter that she gets in the mail, tells him that Mr. Jameson’s praise is as gratifying as Red Forman’s had been, which is a comparison that he understands better than anyone else would.

They talk a few times a week, because Jackie makes herself wait, doesn’t want to come on too strong this time ‘round, is willing to go slow for the opportunity to make it stick. In class, boys will sometimes ask her for a drink or to dinner, and she’s quick to tell them no, she’s _kind of seeing someone_.

She wishes they didn’t both have birthdays in the autumn, because she feels like a gesture would be appropriate—feels like going to visit him would say what she hasn’t yet wanted to vocalize, and he must feel the same way, because when Donna comes back, in July, ranting and raving about Eric Forman and how she’s _done, for good this time, I mean it_, she comes in the Camino.

She comes with Steven.

They don’t kiss, or run from a great distance to hug one another, or anything else in the same vein, because, no matter how fabulous she is, Jackie’s life is not (yet) a movie. They don’t even touch when they greet each other, uncomfortable and shy in a way that they really never have been, exchanging too-polite hellos and a very stiff handshake that has Donna trailing off from her (obviously) exaggerated rant to stare at them like they’re aliens.

Jackie uses up all of her spare articles to take the week off of work, smiling a little when Mr. Jameson gives it to her almost before she’s done asking because he’s been concerned that she never takes time off.

Focusing on Donna’s endless tragedy of a love-life gives the three of them something to laugh about whenever the silence and _anguished gazing_ gets to be too much, but she must be getting tired of playing perpetual third wheel, because on their fourth night, she somehow convinces them that she wants to go out for dinner and drinks, gets dressed with them, and, after Jackie and Hyde have crossed the threshold, slams the door in their faces, turning the deadbolt.

Jackie’s mouth falls open, and it’s almost hard for her to look Steven in the eye, feels herself blushing like they’re strangers, but he nudges her with his elbow, and he looks so good in dark jeans and that black button-down that she loves seeing him in, and Jackie has loved this man since she was seventeen.

“I guess we’re going on a freakin’ date,” she says to him, and his face almost splits on his grin, and it’s like they’ve finally popped the awkwardness-bubble, because their _freaking date_ is freaking amazing.

They don’t go anywhere too fancy, just a nice little Mexican place in the area, and they each pay for their own food, sipping on pop instead of anything stronger. They eat and talk about their friends for long hours until their indulgent waiter finally clues them in on the fact that they’re the last ones in the building and the rest of the place has been closed down: floors mopped, chairs stacked, dishes cleared and all.

After a little walking in the crisp night air, they find a little neighborhood sports bar, far too dim and run down for the dress Jackie’s wearing, and they settle into a worn booth with two pints of Old Style and start the long, arduous process of sorting through their old problems. Steven felt stifled, Jackie felt ignored, both of them gave up instead of working through it. She makes him admit that he maybe married Sam to help her out but he also did it a little bit to get back at her for the Kelso stuff. He tells her he’s sorry he never got over the Kelso stuff and she apologizes for pushing, pushing, pushing when he wasn’t ready to give.

They leave well before last call, having each only nursed two beers, and Jackie feels like she’s just run for miles, she’s so worn thin from all of that, and there’s a tiny, sinking part of herself that wonders if it’s even worth it to keep going, or if they should just shoot for closure and friendship. She doesn’t want to, but she doesn’t know how she’d survive losing Steven a second time.

They head towards her apartment in relative silence, only discussing the fact that Jackie has somehow become a Cubs fan and the fact that Leo has met a woman, and it’d be okay, she thinks, just being best friends.

Halfway back to her building, though, under a streetlight, Steven grabs her by the wrist and, with a well-practiced tug, twirls her into him. He laces his fingers through hers and uses his free hand to cup her jaw, tilting her head up so he can kiss her soundly.

It’s long but not very deep, and Jackie’s heart is racing when he pulls away a little, eyes on her face, checking that that had been okay. She’s sure he’ll read from her expression that it was more than okay, but all of a sudden she’s too impatient for more, and she gets a hand in his hair and pulls him back down so she can kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, feeling so happy she could explode.

It’s tough work walking the rest of the way, because Jackie can’t keep her hands to herself and it seems like Steven is just the same. They must pause every block to kiss some more, sharing air between long moments where their mouths are pressed hotly together. As they walk, Jackie stays tucked beneath Steven’s arm, has missed how touchy he was, has since learned that that was his own way of demonstrating affection and love.

When they get up the stairs, Donna has left the deadbolt undone, but she’s claimed Jackie’s bed for herself, likely to put off hearing them reconcile any more than they have done.

Taking it off the table relaxes Jackie a little bit, wants Steven so badly that she aches, but also wants to do it right this time. Knows how hard it’ll be to let him go in three days if she’s slept with him.

She pulls her entire collection of extra bedding from the small linen closet in her bathroom and makes up the couch, but Steven insists on sleeping on the floor instead of the two of them squishing up together on what is basically a loveseat.

“We’re doing this the right way, this time,” he says, unembarrassed, and Jackie flushes with warmth, feels it curling at her collarbones and swimming in her belly. This is as important to him as it is to her. 

Jackie falls asleep with one hand outstretched over the edge of the couch, loosely holding onto Steven’s hand, and they spend the moments before sleep just listening to one another breathe, taking in the sensation of being together in this way once more.

Donna’s trips always end too quickly, but this one seems even faster than ever, because Jackie has spent every waking second curled into Steven, luxuriating in the closeness without being so gross and sappy that Donna threatens to ditch them for the day. They keep her in the loop, talking with her about Eric’s many faults and hitting a number of spots on Jackie’s to-write column list, and, when it’s time for them to leave, Donna and Jackie hug tightly for long moments before she goes down to wait in the car to give Jackie and Steven some privacy.

“I’ll call you when I drop Donna off,” Steven tells her seriously, and Jackie smiles a little. “From the Forman’s phone.”

He means it, too, which is why it’s so easy for her to tell him to just wait those extra few minutes and call from his own phone. He finally agrees, and kisses her like they’ve been doing it for years, like they hadn’t ever been separated, like he’s trying to promise her everything with just this one goodbye kiss. 

“I love you,” he tells her, honest and open and not expecting her to say it back, just wanting her to know. All of a sudden, it’s the easiest thing in the world to be Steven Hyde’s girlfriend again, because if he wants them to last, they’re going to last.

They’re going to make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, so this is done.

**Author's Note:**

> **End Notes**  
pretty please leave a review or come talk to me on [tumblr](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com/)!


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